Sony: 535,000 Vaio PCs may have overheating glitch

Reuters Staff

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<p>Sony's "Vaio" VPCF11 Series notebook computers in an image released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission on June 30, 2010. REUTERS/CPSC</p>

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Sony Corp said on Wednesday that about 535,000 units of its “Vaio” brand personal computers globally may be in danger of overheating and that it has provided software on its website to eliminate the problem.

Sony said in a statement that there have been 39 overheating cases in total, all reported outside Japan. Some of these have resulted in damage to computer bodies, but no burn injuries have been reported.

Separately, the electronics manufacturer and media company announced a voluntary U.S. recall of 233,000 notebook computers with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Wednesday, warning that overheating posed a “burn hazard” to the consumer.

Some of Sony’s F and C series Vaio PCs made in January this year and some custom-made models from the same series have been affected, the company said.

A Sony spokeswoman said the company has not estimated possible costs stemming from the problem.

Reporting by Yumiko Nishitani, additional reporting by Franklin Paul in New York, editing by Matthew Lewis